Beyond and Up Into
My practice is mainly about time and life and I believe that life is always changing. We can see change in life but also can see life in change as well. Time can be a base, an order, and a system, providing a space that we inhabit. It counts our daily life through repetition. In the subtle changes and shifts of the Everyday, we see time passing and understand what it means to be human.
I use bodily elements, like hair, hands, and spine to create a site where symbols of life exist, and some of the most readily changeable substances like salt and wax to represent a specific status of the change which is provided by time. Along with time moving on, these things can transform between fluid and solid. Through process, I find them flexible in the possibility of transformation but fragile when they become solid.
Thinking about how the human body interacts with change over time, I may be permitted to use conjecture or imagination to explain. In similarity, there might be a process of 'transformation'. as with the part-fluid and part-solid constitution of the body. The human structure is made of different units, those I see as more dense or solid include the spine, nerves, skin, and hairs. The combination of these builds the foundation of the system. More emotional and mental aspects can be regarded as more fluid, just like our mind and spirit. These are arguably flexible and intangible but through using our creativity and imagination, they can become something concrete and be somehow captured. So for me, our body is a kind of place that can provide a system to see changes within.
The Spine
The hanging column titled 'The Spine' was inspired by Constantin Brancusi’s 'Endless Column'. It consists of a constant series of upright and downright shapes of a triangle and that is the reason why it can be called endless.
It might be similar to the way how the spine is built. I partly adopted the form of an upright and downright triangle to build a 'spine' which is very important because of its function to hold our body up but also to some extent extremely delicate and fragile.
'The Spine' ; Wood, wire; 5 x 5 x 115.5 cm, 2019
It Is Time To...
As for the scene of clay hands and candles, I pictured it when I read a poem written by an English poet.
'I warm'd both hands before the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.'
I believe that it is a symbol or to take further it is the moment that life can feel the time (by the changing temperatures of fire) and learn something about the time (the moment life ends).
'It Is Time To...' ; Plaster, wax, wick, pigment; 125 x 30 x 27 cm, 2019
'The Brain' ; Hair, Glass; 10 x 10 x 25 cm, 2019
'Untitlled' ; Salt, paper; 29.5 x 21 cm, 2019
'Awaiting Hammock' ; Wick, wood, bronze rod; 145 x 92 x 45 cm, 2019
'A portrait of Tri' Etching 18.5x 28.5 cm, 2019
Walter Benjamin's description tries to explain how daily things can be seen as very special and unique in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.
To him, the concept of 'aura' can be defined as 'a unique manifestation of a remoteness, however close it may be. ' To be more specific, 'Lying back on a summer's afternoon, gazing at a mountain range on the horizon or watching a branch as it casts its shadow over our reclining limbs, we speak of breathing in the aura of those mountains or that branch.'
I similarly want to capture the moment of 'aura' in my daily life as a kind of a sense of poetry. I believe this is the nature of art.
Something new after Pop-up Show
'Awaiting Hammock ; Wax, wick, wood, bronze rod; 145 x 92 x 45 cm, 2020
